


Nightfall

by corvusdraconis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25707478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvusdraconis/pseuds/corvusdraconis
Summary: SSHG, AU: Hermione works with Severus Snape in a potions business, each seeking escape from a world that sees them as heroes. Each finds something they want in the other but refuse to voice it lest it destroys a dream dreamt by fragile, longing hope. (COMPLETE) M for graphic violence and attempted non-consensual activity.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 32
Kudos: 249





	Nightfall

[ **Summary** ]: Both have been denied what they want, but neither can say anything lest the other burst their bubble of trembling hope. SSHG, AU

 **Beta Love:** None, my beta was asleep like a normal person at his hour...Apologies for any grammar minefields in advance.

* * *

**Nightfall**

_In day-time we investigate, but at night believe._

_~Henry James Slack_

* * *

His hand was gentle, tentative, but warm.

She could feel the rough calluses on his fingers from countless hours workings with potions.

She could almost imagine it as a lover's touch— something painfully hoped for but never to actually have.

"Be careful, Miss Granger," he said. His voice was maddeningly low as it was sensual. "We wouldn't want you to be— damaged."

Had it always been so?

Had she always missed such nuances as his student?

He lifted the fallen flask from her hands and put it on the shelf, the brush of his woollen robes carrying the scent of parchment and ink mixed with something else she couldn't identify. He seemed so impossibly tall.

He had never once voiced any desire for anymore more than a professional relationship. Never a word slipped that he even thought of Hermione Granger as anything but what she was— a coworker.

And Harry had put the nail in the coffin of her hope that it could be something else when he drunkenly spilt his guts to her over too many drinks of fire whisky trying to get over Ginny's cheating on him.

Snape had loved his mum.

Snape had done everything for the memory of Harry's dead mum.

How could she even hold a candle to that?

How could anyone?

"Thank you, Severus," Hermione said, nodding as she put the rest of the vials on the shelf in order. Their potions business had flourished. They had customers from around the world demanding their quality goods, and there wasn't a day that passed where someone didn't come in for some emergency potion for something "dire."

Dire often had different meanings depending on the person.

She had never thought that acne was an emergency, but apparently there were witches and wizards who thought it was. They'd pay through the teeth for their special acne eraser— something that apparently worked without the embarrassing side effects that came with using the standard blemish remover and then drinking alcohol.

Who knew?

Crookshanks sprawled out on the far countertop like he owned it. He seemed to alternate between the towel on the countertop, the nook in the shelf, or the sunny front window. The old man was creeping up in age, even for a half-Kneazle, but Crooks moved quite enthusiastically for his bird on a string toy or at the sound of a tin of sardines being opened. He had appeared one morning on the countertop, demanding his breakfast, as if he owned the place and had never been missing. Merlin only knew how long he'd trekked from Cornwall all the way to London—

He hadn't seemed worse for the experience, thankfully, and he seemed very happy to stay at the shop, not that he was letting anyone tell him otherwise.

Severus called him a pest, but they both seemed to tolerate each other.

Crooks insisted on staying the shoppe, even when Hermione walked back to her flat. Severus had his private home above the shoppe itself, but she had never seen it— only the door that led to it.

He had never invited. The door was never open for visitation.

It was plain that he did not care for the company, and the only reason he tolerated Hermione was that she was a professional contact.

Nothing more.

Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath and banished her thoughts from her mind, using the techniques she had learned to still it and drive them behind a wall that protected her from the invasive thoughts of others who could no more shield their thoughts than realise they were projecting them.

It wasn't their fault, really.

Most people had no idea there were those like her— whose ability to read thoughts blossomed thanks to torture at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Irony chewed at her.

She was working with the one person who could and did shield her out of even the most "safe" unguarded thoughts when her heart desperately wanted to know if he had even the slightest kindness for her in his heart.

Hermione finished the shelving and stocking order and sighed. She brewed the tea habitually, leaving the teacup with a stasis charm on it so Severus could have his tea after he finished his brewing.

She looked at the closed door to the brewing laboratory and sighed again, shaking her head at her own stupid heart.

Stupid heart.

Stupid feelings.

"Goodnight, Severus," she said to the empty room, taking off her apron and hanging it on the hook. "See you in the morning."

She pet Crooks as she locked the up the shop and walked down the street.

* * *

Severus sat with his back to the door as a ragged breath escaped his lungs. "Goodnight, Miss Granger," he whispered as a shiver of need mixed with despair.

Her scent was maddening, and he had made the mistake of touching her— the feel of her warmth had travelled through him like electricity. He stared at his claws— obsidian daggers that cut through stone like a hot knife through butter.

They were not designed for tenderness.

He beat the back of his head against the door, growling, whining, snarling his frustration into the empty laboratory as his whiplike tail smashed into the side of the wall. Debris fell from the wall as he vented against the inanimate object.

He panted, staring at the oily black fur that covered the back of his hands and arms. His nostrils flared, and he pressed his hand to his nose, his tongue slithering out to lick the scent off his talon-like hands. Her scent— her gloriously perfect scent— lingered on his skin where he had touched her.

He licked his hand with his tongue and rubbed it against his head and ears like a cat would groom itself— smearing that scent of her over himself. His teeth bared as his jaws parted, the scent of her lingering on the scent glands toward the back of his mouth.

Only then, in that exquisite agonising bath in her scent did the pain ease for just a little time.

The longing.

The need.

If she even had a clue as to how much he wanted her, surely she would run for the hills and never return. How could she possibly return the feelings of someone as cursed as he was?

" _One day you'll fall in love, Sev, and hope she sees you for what you truly are," Lily hissed at him. "Nothing but a beast!"_

It had never even concerned him.

He had always believed he had loved Lily, and nothing had happened but her continued spite.

Until her—

Hermione had waltzed into his life having trained with some obscure master in the depths of the DoM, served as a consultant to St Mungos treating their comatose patients, cured the Longbottoms of some even more puzzling block that had prevented their minds from rebounding from the Cruciatus attacks—

She had just wanted to escape the limelight of being a heroine, she'd said.

She was tired of being pursued for her fame and not for her mind. She was tired of knowing exactly what they thought of her—

Oh, but if she only knew what he thought of her—

If only.

She would run even further from him.

He longed to hold her, press her body against his and feel her lifeforce so close—

He winced, his fangs bared in exquisite suffering that made what he'd ever felt for Lily feel like alcohol on a cut.

Her laugh.

Her smile.

The way she bit her lip when she was thinking about something.

The way she held her teacup in the morning— how she could barely even function without at least three cups of tea.

Gods, the way she ranted about Potter and Weasley's stupidity— it was glorious.

The way she tamed her hair with those gravity-defying sticks of hers—she'd called them hair-wands— and then developed a whole line of designer series of them from cats to birds, flying horses, brooms, and more.

She was so very clever.

He had been so very, very careful not to allow her into his private spaces. He had to draw the line and keep her at arm's length. He couldn't let her even chance to stay when night came and stole away his controls over the monster—

The monster that was him.

He couldn't let her know he—

Cared.

He couldn't let her think there was a chance—

And hurt her.

Worse— what if it turned her into something like himself?!

Gods, he would never forgive himself.

Hermione.

_I need you._

No! Stay away!

_Please, come back!_

No! You don't need anyone!

He whined, growling, tearing at his arms with his claws until he bled as a moaning howl escaped his throat.

* * *

Hermione found herself at the front of the store as if drawn unsure as to why or even—

Shite, she wasn't even wearing more than a robe cast over her nightclothes. What was she thinking? In the dead of night.

Severus was probably sound asleep— just like she should be.

"Well, hallo, lovely," a man drawled as he staggered around the corner with his mates. "Look, mates, it's Hermione Granger."

"The Hermione Granger?"

"None other— I'd recognise that mug anywhere."

"You're mistaken," Hermione said, pulling her robe tighter around herself.

"Naw," the first man chuckled. "I'd recognise that mug anywhere." He wet his lips with obvious lust as he focused on her breasts.

"Be on your way please," Hermione said, her hand going for her wand and realising like a total idiot she had hared off without it, leaving it on her bedside table.

Stupid. Stupid. STUPID!

Suddenly, one of the man's mates had her by the neck, using his arm to chokehold her as the others smiled and approached.

"Dressed like that— you're just asking for it," the one chuckled.

"Who are we to turn you down, eh?"

Hermione struggled, but her panic made her shields crumble, and she caught every single dirty, perverted thought they wanted to do to her in a rush.

_No, not like this. Not like this!_

Hands on her body.

Perverted.

Nasty.

_NO!_

She fought. She writhed. She kicked. She scre—

The first wizard pointed a wand at her. "None of that, pet. Imper—"

A blood-curdling roar echoed as the remains of the nearby door flew in all directions as a beast from the very pits of hell seemed to rise from the darkened shop. Glowing red eyes seemed to drip light as yellowed teeth flashed in the dark of night, an unholy glow of supernatural fury brightened the mouth filled with dagger-like teeth.

Snap.

Rend.

Tear.

The wizard who had touched Hermione screamed and held the remaining stump of his arm where teeth had torn it clean off. His mates ran, drunkenly, not even bothering to stop and help him escape.

Hermione looked into the eyes of her unexpected saviour, and she felt it—

The kind of devotion that had no equal.

Rage on her behalf.

Protective fury.

Compassion.

Need.

Desire.

The scent—

It was Severus' scent.

The black eyes—

They were his eyes.

Severus.

She ran towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist, slamming her face into the oily fur of his chest. "Severus," she whispered.

His furred arms wrapped around her as the beast whined, tongue lapping at her tears.

Finally able to read his thoughts, Hermione sobbed as he held her. She took his head between her hands and placed a tender kiss on his muzzle. "I love you too, you stubborn, self-sacrificing man."

He crushed her into a hug, a low crooning moan escaping his throat, and Hermione felt a strange sensation as the beast seemed to grow taller, more upright, and— skinnier?

She looked up into the pale face of Severus Snape.

"Hermione," he said raggedly, apology written all over his face. "Please don't leave. "I die every night without you."

Hermione looked up at him and smiled weakly. "On one condition."

His face twisted in conflict as he weighed what promise she could possibly demand of him—

"Name it."

"Kiss me first."

His eyes widened. "I just ripped the arm off a man with this mouth."

Hermione held up a tube of toothpaste and a brush from her robe pocket with a sheepish expression.

Snape's pale fingers wrapped around the toothpaste and brush, taking them. "Your wish is my command," he said, his voice heavy with desire. He pulled her to him, backing into the store as he wordlessly and wandlessly repaired the door he had obliterated.

As the sound of frantic tooth brushing came from the upstairs flat, Crookshanks flicked his tail. The arm of the night's offender (and all of the blood) turned into a dead mouse. He promptly took it in his mouth and jumped onto the rubbish bin and dropped it in, licked his paws clean, and then trotted back into the shop, passing through the door like it wasn't even there.

Crooks jumped back onto his favourite spot on the counter and curled up with a satisfied purr.

Finally, everything was as it was supposed to be.

* * *

And they lived happily ever after as the curse backlashed and turned Lily Evans into a hideous monster in the Afterlife.

Pity James didn't want to kiss that mouth—

* * *

**The End**

* * *

**A/N:** This short brought to you by post-art trying to reset my sleeping schedule. Hope you enjoyed it.


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